Wednesday, January 18, 2017 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[opusthepenguin]

Philly/Boston/NYC (not capitals, of course,

Except for the one that is.

[davey]

I would usually pavlov from Western author to Louis L'Amour (at least, for one who was alive in 1984), but I thought Hondo was by Elmore Leonard, who early on wrote Westerns, if not "dozens." (And I also assumed he was more likely to be honored - he had a literary reputation). I guess I was thinking of Hombre. Scott Turow was easy.
I wasn't likely to connect the dots to DE and Dover. The First State thing has never made much of an impression on me, the way Shakespeare and Dickens don't for some others...

[MattKnowles]

Coryat: $29,600

I got Brady, Louis L'Amour, and Crabs.

TMI.

Lol.

[seaborgium]

I usually miss the Louis L'Amour questions. If I guess L'Amour then the answer is Zane Grey and if I guess Zane Grey then the answer is L'Amour. I recognized "Hondo" and got it right this time. Both authors have about 50 books and the titles are usually fungible.

I guessed L'Amour because the clue gave a date in the 1980s and I knew Zane Grey was active in the earlier part of the twentieth century.

I thought the thirty delegates in FJ were agreeing on something, and went with Concord as a result. I must have been thinking of this game.

[Kenny]

I would not consider Delaware (nor Dover being the capital) being the first state to be arcane knowledge.

Then you must've grown up in the Northeast. There's no way anyone who grew up in Texas, California or Washington would consider Delaware being the first state as common knowledge.

[seaborgium]

I would not consider Delaware (nor Dover being the capital) being the first state to be arcane knowledge.

Then you must've grown up in the Northeast. There's no way anyone who grew up in Texas, California or Washington would consider Delaware being the first state as common knowledge.

This Californian disagrees.

[Bamaman]

I was born and raised in Alabama. I have lived in Alabama my entire life except for eight years I lived in Tennessee.

[Volante]

I would not consider Delaware (nor Dover being the capital) being the first state to be arcane knowledge.

Then you must've grown up in the Northeast. There's no way anyone who grew up in Texas, California or Washington would consider Delaware being the first state as common knowledge.

This Californian disagrees.

As does this one.

[MattKnowles]

Delaware state quarter:


Delaware state license plate:


Delaware state nickname: "The First State"

[This Is Kirk!]

I would not consider Delaware (nor Dover being the capital) being the first state to be arcane knowledge.

Then you must've grown up in the Northeast. There's no way anyone who grew up in Texas, California or Washington would consider Delaware being the first state as common knowledge.

This Californian disagrees.

As does this one.

Seriously, this is a ridiculous claim. Most Americans who consider themselves well-versed in trivia could tell you Delaware was the first state. How could that fact possibly be arcane?

This FJ took me probably half the time. I knew 1787 pointed toward the Constitution, but at first I thought it was referring to where the Constitution was signed. I finally realized they were looking for the first state to ratify it, which led directly to Dover.

My sister-in-law was watching with us tonight and she also thought they were looking for the state, so for some reason the wording threw a lot of people. It seemed clear to me.

All and all this was certainly not an easy FJ. You did have to follow a line of reasoning to get to Dover, but it wasn't that hard. I'd be surprised if it polled under 50%.

[rpg]

I laughed at the Louis L'Amour TS. They have asked about him several times on Jeopardy, and contestants never get him. This, despite him selling about 300 million copies of his books, many times more than the "name" writers people read in schools or see constantly on quizzes/trivia shows, and being a legendary name as recently as the 80s.

If you know nothing about the man other than he wrote Western novels, then you might be afraid of ringing in and losing the coin flip with Zane Grey and then hand someone else a free $2,000.

I waffled very briefly between the two, but most of these coin-flips can be resolved by looking at the dates: before 1940 or so will be Zane Grey, after will be Louis L'Amour.

These were some terrible boards for me and I earned my lowest score in quite a while. I also mucked up FJ, putting Harrisburg, thinking it was related to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (and hoping Harrisburg was near Philly...). Ratification didn't occur to me.

2/3 wrote a state. Another potential win thrown away by terrible 2nd place wagering. How many missed FJs in a row by the leader is that, 16? 17? Sheesh. I got it, but it took waaaaaaay longer than it should have.

I literally can't believe how many people are well-informed enough to have a bunch of money going into FJ, yet don't understand the first thing about wagering.

If you're in second, you have to assume the person in first will bet enough to win if they get FJ right, so you should bet as if they'll get it wrong.

Is it really 2nd place who are botching the wagers? Why is it so religiously believed that the leader must wager to beat any bet by 2nd? Isn't the 16/17 in a row where that is a losing bet (or at least not optimal) enough evidence that sometimes wagering small from the lead is a good idea?

Yes, second place is botching them, because first place almost always wagers for the shut-out. This happens so often that from second place you need to assume that's what the leader will do and bet accordingly. First place is trickier to evaluate; you're right that we shouldn't get too caught up in slavish devotion to the shut-out bet, but it's hard to make an argument that it's clearly wrong. Second and third place make huge wagers often enough that the shut-out bet makes a lot of sense. It gives you the win whenever you hit final (50%+) and can even give you a TS win some of the time (as in this game).

If the meta-game evolves to the point where second place is making a lot of small bets, then the shut-out will probably no longer look so great.

[twelvefootboy]

Philly/Boston/NYC (not capitals, of course,

Except for the one that is.

hey, at least i didn't list STATES, lol..

i wanted to avoid the big names but was suckered by the tavern. i knew the marines were founded in a tavern in boston so i overrode my phobia of the obvious place names. i figure about any city could have been a capital at one time or other up to the 20th century. Dover was my hunch, but i made boston my guess, at least something happened in a tavern there.

i liked the question (do we have to call it the answer?). i would have gotten it without the stupid tavern reference. i'm going to be agnostic as to whether Delaware as first state is common knowledge. IMHO it is to Baby Boomers, but probably less so to younger folks. Maybe I've just seen the license plates.

[Category 13]

I would not consider Delaware (nor Dover being the capital) being the first state to be arcane knowledge.

Then you must've grown up in the Northeast. There's no way anyone who grew up in Texas, California or Washington would consider Delaware being the first state as common knowledge.

My chances of getting on Jeopardy! and kicking ass in U.S. geography categories just went up a whole bunch.

[Bamaman]

On the TV show M*A*S*H, Zane Grey was Colonel Potter's favorite author. So a mention of the early 20th century would make it Grey. A later time period would make it L'Amour.

[dinghammer]

I got Brady, Louis L'Amour, and Crabs.

Oh yeah, Brady and L'Amour were two more failures of my ability to recall things I definitely know.

For L'Amour, I knew it was the one who isn't Zane Grey, but my brain just remembered the Ls and gave me Larry McMurtry. I knew that was wrong too, but I still couldn't come up with the right name in time. A terrible episode for me all around.

[Johnblue]

I just had the dubious pleasure of driving through Delaware the other day but I'd have known FJ anyway. It was tough to watch Sherri blow her game apart. Maybe it's better to start at the top of the categories? Lots of LT for me tonight. Has anyone on J ever gotten a Mathew Brady question right?

[IronNeck]

I laughed at the Louis L'Amour TS. They have asked about him several times on Jeopardy, and contestants never get him. This, despite him selling about 300 million copies of his books, many times more than the "name" writers people read in schools or see constantly on quizzes/trivia shows, and being a legendary name as recently as the 80s.

If you know nothing about the man other than he wrote Western novels, then you might be afraid of ringing in and losing the coin flip with Zane Grey and then hand someone else a free $2,000.

You would literally have to know nothing in this case, since Zane Grey died in the 1930s, and the clue mentions the author getting an award in 1984. Two completely different eras of Westerns. It's like confusing Jane Austen with a clue about George Eliot referencing the 1860s.

If you know the first state to ratify the Constitution, you are much better than"average" in US history.

I can assure you I'm indeed very average at answering clues about US History on Jeopardy, and haven't studied the subject seriously since I was in high school.

As for knowing Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, I merely had to recall the state nickname. ("The First State")

Delaware being the first state is, unless you've lived there, pretty arcane knowledge.

You can keep saying it requires "arcane knowledge" as much as you like, but it sure seems like an awful lot of people in this topic got it for such an "extremely difficult" clue.

Plus you'd still need to know the capital even if you knew the state.

Which is supposed to be difficult, somehow? Anyone with even a mild interest in Jeopardy is told to memorize all the state and world capitals first.

Edit- And like seaborgium and Volante, I'm a Californian and have never lived in a different state.

[Bob78164]

This game is a draw for the Weak Form of Shore's Conjecture. The second-place player bet "small." --Bob

[theamazingchong]

I also went with Annapolis on FJ, my reasoning being that the seventh state (Maryland) ratifying meant that a majority of the original Thirteen Colonies had ratified the Constitution. I knew Delaware was the first state, as I collected the state quarters as a kid, but that never crossed my mind as an avenue to the FJ solution.

I noticed that Alex mentioned letters could come before/after the Y's on Y_O_Y so birthday boy was a quick get for me. But I do with they could have noted that in the category title too (i.e., _Y_O_Y_).

[morbeedo]

TS: Matthew Brady

Mathew.

Yeah, that guy!